This graphic includes data for the 2000-2012 Oscars, sourced from IMDb and Wikipedia. It shows settings, not filming locations.
Films that were set in fictional locations, such as the Lord of the Rings series, were ignored. For movies that take place in multiple locations, I attempted to assign a fair
decimal value – meaning that if a movie split its time between two primary settings, I counted 0.5 movies for each location.
I almost certainly made some errors, and made subjective calls you may not agree with. California could easily be said to be even
more dominant than what my graphic shows, for example, given that Little Miss Sunshine, The Hours, and Traffic perhaps should amount
to a count of more than 0.75 California-set movies. Either way, the clear take-away here is that California is rather over-represented,
along with a few other popular locations. This is likely a reflection of Hollywood as a whole, rather than just the Academy.